Going to Grandma's (and Grandpa's)!

This past weekend came as a bit of surprise, but turned out to be fantastic! We were expecting some friends from Springfield, IL to come up and visit, but on Thursday they received some very sad news. Our friend's father had passed away. He was heading out to Rhode Island to be with his family, and his wife and kids were going to be flying out the next day. We had already planned on Jaime's cousin Alex staying with us on Thursday night on his way up to visit Grandma and Grandpa in Northern Wisconsin, so we decided to jump in on his plans and surprise Grandma and Grandpa as well! But first, we had to have a little Milwaukee fun with Alex...

Here's Steve and Alex on the shore of Lake Michigan attempting to break the ice by throwing rocks on it...unfortunately, the ice was fairly thick and the rocks were itty bitty...

...and Alex got to stand on the shores of the Lake for the first time...



Following our adventures along the lakefront, we headed over to The Safe House and had dinner in a jail cell...
and then took Alex to the RiverWalk so he could get his picture taken with the "Bronze Fonz" (yes, that really is a tribute to the Fonz from Happy Days...go ahead and laugh...)


Next, it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's! They were already expecting Alex, so he decided to get a bit of a head start so that he could play along with the surprise. We followed him by about 30 minutes and arrived just in time for lunch (I know, we have good timing!) Grandpa answered the door, and I asked him if we could join them for lunch, and he opened the door and let us in. Then he goes, "Oh my! It's Jaime and Steve!" And we could hear Grandma in the kitchen going, "Is that Jaime?!?!" It was such a great surprise! And such a great weekend! It was a lot of fun to be able to catch up with what's all going on with them, and it was fun to be able to spend some more time with Alex. One of Alex's friends even took us out Friday night to show us what real Wausau night life is like! We had a blast at the country bar (even though none of us were brave enough to take on the mechanical bull), and left some of money at the local casino.

All in all, it was a great weekend, filled with great stories, college basketball, and GREAT Grandma food! This one is for you, Dad! They polished off the Rhubarb Betty before we left, don't worry!

Here we are with Grandma and Grandpa...And we figured out the timer on Jaime's camera so that we could get a picture with all of Grandma and Grandpa's favorite grandkids (don't worry! We won't tell the others that we're the favorites!)